In the theatre world in Trinidad and Tobago, family and friends often end up working together. The recent production of the musical Mamma Mia! by Proscenium Theatre Company saw the mother-daughter duo of Michelle Tardieu-Attale and Aurora Tardieu taking on the mother-daughter roles of Donna and Sophie respectively.
When asked by WMN what it was like to work closely together in those roles, Tardieu-Attale said the work was a unique one and really special to her for more than one reason.
“They can’t find, and I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just they can’t find it, where an actual mother and daughter played the parts of Donna and Sophie. The closest they found were a mother and daughter who acted in it 15 years apart.
“I’ve been with the Marionettes Chorales for 34 years, and I’ve never volunteered to do any leading roles in it because I’ve always been nervous about those things, but now I was just ready for it, and I felt completely fine.”
Tardieu-Attale said Tardieu’s help was invaluable to her as she took on the character of Donna.
“She gave me tips, because she’s more experienced in the acting than I am, so she was able to give me tips on what to do, how to be. I also had approval from my daughters, who said to me separately, ‘You are Donna, how you take care of the house, and your loved ones, always doing this and that, so it should be an easy role for you.’”
Tardieu said working with her mom was both easy and difficult at times.
“Mom and I usually respond to each other in a certain way over things, so we had to tweak those to suit the characters. In some ways it was easy, like the body language was easy. But at the same time my mom and I are people who really appreciate our space, so the whole feeling like losing each other just because of a wedding, I don’t think we’re like that. So we had to learn how to switch from playing heavily on our natural relationship in some ways and then acting out of character in other ways.
“The beautiful thing about it, though, is that this is going to be a memory we get to hold on to forever, because some people might be in a show with their mom but not really playing mother and daughter.”
Tardieu-Attale said while the pair didn’t live together, they interacted on a daily basis, and working so closely together hadn’t affected them negatively.
“We pick up the phone and call each other and talk about things. It was all good.”
Tardieu said her mom had been performing ever since she (Tardieu) knew herself, and she had been present for most of her performance career.
“My mother has been a member of the Marionettes since I was a child. I grew up running around Queen’s Hall, and I got into Marionettes myself at age 11. From there at age 17, I got into lead roles in musical theatre, so it’s a normal part of our lives, and because music has been so central to us, if either of us would break into song randomly the other one would start singing harmonies or backup, that’s a normal thing. So this one won’t change that, it’s already as max as it could be.”
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